docbook2man-spec.pl(1) [redhat man page]
DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL(1) DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL(1) NAME
docbook2man-spec.pl - convert DocBook RefEntries to man pages SYNOPSIS
sgmlspl docbook2man-spec.pl nsgmls [ sgml document ]| sgmlspl docbook2man-spec.pl DESCRIPTION
docbook2man is a sgmlspl spec file that produced man pages (using the -man macros) from DocBook RefEntry markup. The program reads ESIS produced by nsgmls (or other SGML parsers) from standard input. Markup not found in RefEntry is discarded. Its output, the converted man pages, are written to the current directory. If RefMeta information is not specified in a RefEntry, then the man page will be written to standard output. The file manpage.links will also be created, which contains any aliases of the manpages generated. This file is in the format: <man page> <alias manpage> The manpage.refs file keeps track of XRef references. Note that if the input document has any forward references, then docbook2man may have to be invoked twice (the first time updating manpage.refs) to resolve them. REQUIREMENTS
The SGMLSpm package from CPAN. This package includes the sgmlspl script that is also needed. LIMITATIONS
Trying docbook2man on non-DocBook or non-conformant SGML results in undefined behavior. :-) This program is a slow, dodgy Perl script. This program does not come close to supporting all the possible markup in DocBook, and may produce wrong output in some cases with sup- ported markup. TO DO
Obvious stuff: o Fix docbook2man breakages found in the test documents, especially weird.sgml. o Add new element handling and fix existing handling. Be robust. o Produce cleanest, readable man output as possible (unlike some other converters). Follow Linux man(7) convention. As conversion to man pages is usually not done very often, it is better to be slower/more complicated than to produce wrong output. Also if someone wants to give up using DocBook for whatever reason, the last-converted man pages can then be maintained manually. o Make it faster. I think most of the speed problems so far is with parsing ESIS. Rewrite SGMLS.pm with C and/or get input directly from SP. o Support other (human) languages. But what to do with non-ASCII charsets? SGMLSpm doesn't report them and roff does not grok them. [Comment: text after enclosed lists (and SS blocks) will break docbook2man] If we do this, more people can use DocBook. COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; see the file COPYING. If not, please write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 05 February 2003 DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
docbook-to-man(1) General Commands Manual docbook-to-man(1) NAME
docbook-to-man -- convert DocBook SGML into roff -man macros SYNOPSIS
docbook-to-man [source.sgml] [>] [destination.1] DESCRIPTION
The docbook-to-man tool is a batch converter that transforms UNIX-style manpages from the DocBook SGML DTD into nroff/troff -man macros. docbook-to-man is the shell command that runs the low-level components to translate a single DocBook SGML document instance (whose document element is <RefEntry>) into pretty-much vanilla -man macros, with tables rendered in tbl. This is not the original version by Fred Dalrymple, but one with the ANS Modifications by David Bolen (db3l@ans.net). This manual page and some small changes are by W. Borgert debacle@debian.org for Debian GNU/Linux. Permission is granted to copy, distrib- ute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. White space and special characters If you want to use tabs in your manpage you should use <programlisting>, <literal> or <screen> and invoke docbook-to-man with INSTANT_OPT set to a tab character. Be aware that multiple tabs will be collapsed into one. When you want to collapse white space into one, you should invoke docbook-to-man with INSTANT_OPT set to a space character. Special characters like , ' or . will not be interpreted if you set INSTANT_OPT to a space or tab character. ENVIRONMENT
If the variable INSTANT_OPT is not set, the instant(1) is called with the parameter -d by docbook-to-man. If you don't want this, e.g. if you want to use some special characters literally in your SGML file, you can set INSTANT_OPT to just a space character: INSTANT_OPT=" " docbook-to-man src.sgml > dst.1 Note: The better way to use special characters like ^ or > is to write them in the SGML way, i.e. ⁁ or >. COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1996 X Consortium Copyright (c) 1996 Dalrymple Consulting Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER- CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE X CONSORTIUM OR DALRYMPLE CONSULTING BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. Except as contained in this notice, the names of the X Consortium and Dalrymple Consulting shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization. See also instant(1) and transpec(5) docbook-to-man(1)